Abolish Residenzpflicht! Abolish ‚Lagers‘! Stop Deportations! Right to Work and Study!

Tag: Demonstration

It has been a long and intense morning with hundreds demonstrating on the streets of Kreuzberg to protest against the eviction of the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Schule, against German racist and neocolonial asylum and migration policies, Fortress Europe, and deportations.Many thanks to all those today in support and solidarity for the people of the school, thanks to the activists and initiatives, such as International Women Space, Bündnis Zwangsräumung verhindern, Initiative Oury Jallou, Initiative Schwarzer Menschen in Deutschland, Corasol, Stop Deportation Group, Schlafplatzorga, Nachbarschaftsinitiative Ohlauer Straße and KuB for their powerful speeches at the manifestations in front of the school, at Hermannplatz, and on Oranienplatz. What is more, it was very important to have a speech of a representative of the Roma community. They used to live in the school and they were evicted on June 24th, 2014 to be distributed to remote places at the city’s margins, far from their local environment. Their children lost their structures, they could not attend their schools anymore, which led to a far more complicated situation in terms of education and to maintain friendship ties. Almost all of the Roma people were driven into homelessness again, some of them are dead.

After the last long negotiations with the Berlin senate and the district authorities of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg on January 10th, the remaining inhabitants of the school went out of the school building the evening before the set eviction date. After a first month in a camp Schöneweide, they will live in a container camp in Kreuzberg. For some, their asylum cases will undergo revision on the basis of §23 Residence Law – yet, as the so-called ‘Oranienplatz Agreement’ after the demolition of the Oplatz camp perfectly illustrated, there is no guarantee that this re-evaluation will lead to any granted legal status. It is important to support the people (e.g. accompany them to the authorities, etc.), to remain in touch with them and to stay organised and cautious about the senate’s and the district’s next steps. Supporters organised a crowdfunding campaign that that aims to cover most of the urgent needs, such as medicine, lawyer’s fees, and local transport, among others.

The political struggle, the local and international fights against repression, gentrification and every-day racism, against the backdrop of the capitalistic system continue. As was shown on the demo route of December 16th and January 11th, local fights in Kreuzberg against gentrification, daily evictions of individuals and projects, such as Friedel54, or against GoogleCampus in Ohlauer Straße need to be stronger addressed as linked to the fights of the lower classes, the poor, exploited and disenfranchised, the refugees, migrants and newcomers.

english – deutsch –فارس –العربية

This Wednesday, two deportation charter flights will leave from Germany. This time it is to Pakistan and Afghanistan, next time it is to other places. Even one deportation is unacceptable and deportations happen all the time: any morning, our friends could be taken from their beds by police, locked in detention centers and forced on planes against their will.

As this is another example that the German state is escalating their deportation efforts, we will come out in the streets and make our anger loud and clear: Freedom of Movement is Everybody’s Right! We Are Here and We Will FIGHT!

STOP DEPORTATIONS NOW!

Wednesday 06.12. 18.00

Oranienplatz (U8/1 Kottbusser Tor)

Let us make sure that the state is not getting away with this while we are silent and that there are consequences to their actions.

DEMONSTRATION TO END THE ENSLAVEMENT, RAPES, TORTURES AND KILLINGS OF BLACKS IN LYBIA

The BLACK COMMUNITY IN GERMANY invites all Black Organizations, Groups, Movements and Individuals and their Friends and Supporters to a Nationwide Demonstration at the Lybian Embassy in Berlin to Demand the Immediate End of the Enslavement, Selling, Rapes and Killings of Blacks in Lybia.

We are 2 of the many people that are faced with rejection of our asylum claim. We are from Pakistan and many of our friends are being taken out of their beds by the police in the morning and forced on planes to Pakistan against their will. We are making a stand against ALL deportations and for a fair and just asylum procedure. Therefore we will protest against this inhumane treatment and call for:

German asylum practices
During only the first six months of 2017, 11.247 Pakistanis received a rejection of their asylum claim in Germany. This creates an atmosphere of fear and despair within the community. In 2016, more than 6000 persons with Pakistani nationality left Germany. Many of them were put on airplanes to Pakistan or other EU member states. Many others were pushed to take a “voluntary” decision of leaving.

Since 2010, the readmission agreement between Pakistan and the EU has come into effect, which makes it easier to get rid of “unwanted persons” by cooperating, among other by giving access to databases for the confirmation of identities as well as passport substitution for carrying out deportations.

In Berlin, deportation attempts were reported to have taken place before the obligation to leave the country was communicated. Officials who carry out deportations have lately been appearing in civil clothing which makes it possible for them to act even more unexpectedly. Deportations have officially been happening unannounced since the asylum law tightenings of 2015. New laws, such as the “Gesetz zur besseren Durchsetzung der Ausreisepflicht” (29.07.2016), allow for even more state control and violence.

Why Pakistan is not safe
After deportation, people face charges due to Pakistan’s immigration laws and go to jail. The Pakistani government’s Emigration Ordinance of 1979 foresees prison sentences of up to five years for nationals that violate provisions of the ordinance when emigrating or exiting the country.

– Stop legitimization of racism in asylum practices and in our accommodation centers!

– Stop all deportations!

Our stories: we are two refugees from Pakistan and we are in Berlin. These are our stories:

Usman
My name is Usman. I am from Pakistan which I left in 2015. My nose is broken, my hand is burned and my body has suffered from several cuts. I cannot hear from one ear. All those injuries were caused by the Pakistani begging mafia. Like many others, I was kidnapped as a child by this mafia that forced me to beg in the streets. They hurt me and inflicted these visible injuries in order to optimize my chances to earn money for them. I was taken across the country and forced to beg in nearly every city. When I tried to resist they punished me by beating me up. Some hostages were killed after trying to escape. I have no education and neither have I learned to read nor write.

After approximately 13 years, another hostage helped me to escape which we managed to do somewhere in the Punjab region. The two of us eventually entered Europe from Turkey to Greece where we were put in an orphanage. Soon thereafter, we joined a bigger group of refugees who were walking northwards and then I reached Germany. Now I live in Berlin as an asylum seeker. At some point I heard about a Pakistani community playing cricket in Tempelhof. I went there to play with them and met some people from the Stop Deportation Group which I am now a part of. I have found support in the group, among other for the attempt to find my family in Pakistan.

My claim for asylum has been rejected, and the German authorities are trying to deport me. I am kindly asking for understanding of my situation. How am I supposed to return to Pakistan where I do not have any connections? Neither do I know where I am from nor who my family is. My friends and network, with whom I am associated are here in Berlin where I want to stay.

Saeed
I am Muhammad Saeed and I come from Pakistan. I am 45 years old and I live in Berlin. My asylum claim was rejected. I need medical supervision for my heart problem. I cannot sleep without a breath-support system / respirator after a half-sided paralysis that I suffered from. Without this machine I could get permanent brain damage or die from oxygen deprivation.
In my home country I am afraid to be hunted down by religious fanatics from my clan who claim that I dishonoured my family by divorcing my wife. I received many threats before I left the country.
I am kindly asking for help in my situation. I am in great fear to get deported and I just want to live without permanent fear.

Wuppertal: Deportation of 38 people stopped through self-orgaized protest by refugees. Demo on Saturday!

Currently, many refugees are subject to deportations from the reception camp Art Hotel in Wuppertal to Italy in accordance to the Dublin III regulation. 38 people have been deported from Art Hotel on June 3rd already. On Wednesday (June 5th) 38 more people should be deported. This is especially scandalous because they tried to deport the refugees shortly before a self-organized demonstration on Saturday. However, the deportation was stopped by the protest of refugees and other people in solidarity, and the bus returned empty.

Enough is enough. We are fed up with the attacks on our lives. Nowhere on the earth we are safe, not in our own countries, not in Europe nor in Germany. Part of the responsible persons gather this week in Hamburg and celebrate themselves. At the same time, we are obliged to struggle day and night to survive.

We, refugees from Wuppertal and surroundings want to show our presence on the streets and manifest, that we do not allow anyone to play with our lives.

We are here because you destroy our countries!

We do not allow that they deport us to Afghanistan, Iraq, or Sudan. The NATO-states together with other warlords are responsible for the situation in these countries. It is shaming that blatant lies are spread and Afghanistan is made to a safe country. It is perverse that people even think of building safe zones for refugees in Syria. Whose bombs are raining each night on the roofs of Syrian civilians? Is peace wanted at all or is more hatred desired, in order to keep the war running and the profits flowing?

United against colonial injustice

We do not allow that we are sent to West Africa, where we are persecuted and our lives are not safe. We do not allow that our lives are bought by giving money to our corrupt state lords, in order to issue papers and take us back, to start again with persecution and exploitation. Our countries are being exploited since more than 500 years. Our natural resources have been sold cheap to the big corporations of the world. Now, our lives are being sold publicly and cheap.

We do not allow that we are deported to Italy or Greece, where we have to live on the streets and to work more than 16 hours a day on the farms as the new slaves of Europe. At the same time we have no access to medical care and the money we earn is not even enough to rent a small flat.

We can not accept that our brothers and sisters from Balkan have no right to apply for asylum here and are immediately upon arrival put into deportation centers. It is shaming, how our people from Balkan have ben criminalized by German authorities to legitimate the deportations to those countries and prepare the society here for the deportation crimes. The same happened with our brothers and sisters from North Africa. Now the Federal Republic of Germany has done everything and continuously pushed the states to take us back. Who will be the next?

Hatred is grown here in Europe in order to avoid that the people in Europe who are affected by low wages and poverty do solidarize with us. But we share the same pain. No matter if here or in our countries, the same corporations and their servants in the states plunder and exploit us, divide us, to get richer. But we have to struggle to survive and to build a future for our children. We want a world that is based on solidarity for the wealth of humanity. We want a world where peace and wealth are shaping our lives and not an agenda of the G7 or G20, an agenda of competition and corruption, an agenda that perpetually generates war, generates poor and rich.

We say Asylum is a human right and not a privilege.

We are forced to protect our lives and therefore we pledge to live there, where our lives are safe.

We invite everyone that cannot bear anymore the lies and the humiliation to join us to the streets. We want to demonstrate that solidarity and the connection between people are the principles of our communities and those of human being.

BERLIN, FREE OF DEPORTATIONS – SOLIDARITY WITHOUT BORDERS
International Day of Action against the European Border Regime
18.03.2017 + 12 o’clock + Airport Schönefeld

The Berlin-Schönfeld airport is not only an important transport junction of the capital, but also a hub of the European border regime. Currently planes are being chartered twice a month to deport people and send them back to the Western Balkan countries, which were declared as safe countries of origin a year ago. A massive increase of deportations is looming in the coming months: thousands of Afghans are to be sent back to a country still ravaged by war and shaped by wartime disputes. Angela Merkel is calling for a „national effort“ for increased deportations with her „16-points-plan“ and is further planning the implementation of centralized „exit centers“, which are de facto prisons, near airports.
We oppose this policy of isolation: We do not want people to be treated like dangerous criminals by being arrested detained by the police, torn from families and friends and cordoned off at airports – only to then simply unload them a few hours later in one of the most dangerous places in the world. Instead of separating refugees along “good” and “bad” perspectives of stay, categorizing people by nationality, reason for flight, or potential economic utility, we need a joint fight against racist division! Instead of inciting fear and hatred, we need a policy of solidarity that demands the right to a good life for all!
On March 18, we will protest to show our vision of Berlin at Schönefeld Airport, a Berlin in which migration is not a threat, in which “welcome” is not a question of the political climate, but includes the real possibility to stay. A Berlin in which no one has to be afraid to be deported the next day. We are demonstrating for Berlin as a city of solidarity. For us, a city of solidarity also means that all people have access to education, housing and health care – regardless of their residence status! In this sense, we call upon the new Berlin government, which announced a “paradigm shift” with regard to the right of residence and asylum in its coalition agreement, to actually get this shift under way. The coalition agreement also states that deportations are to be replaced by the increased support of so-called “supported returns”, a policy which aims to create incentives for refugees for a so-called voluntary leave. This project is by no means a paradigm shift, but merely an attempt to whitewash an inhumane deportation practice.
By protesting at the airport, we are also joining the airport protests of the last weeks. Many people gathered in Frankfurt and Munich to resist the deportations to Afghanistan already taking place. And in the US, thousands fought against President Trump`s imposed entry ban for refugees and many muslims. They blocked the access routes to terminals, demanded permitted entry for their families, neighbors and friends and declared their cities as „Sanctuary CIties” under the slogan #heretostay, where migrants without papers are protected against deportations.

On March 18 we are also not alone with our protest: The Hotel City Plaza in Athens, which was occupied in 2016 and since then has served as a self-organised home for refugees and a place of antiracism and solidarity, called for an international day of resistance. March 18 was selected because exactly one year ago, the EU-Turkey agreement was signed – a dirty deal with the authoritarian Erdogan regime, which declared Turkey a “safe third country” for refugees and facilitated deportations and foreclosure. This agreement is part of other already existing and planned deals worth billions with dictatorial states, which ensure that refugees can be sent back or stopped at the gates of Europe. In order to protest against this policy, today many people will take to the streets in different German cities and in Greece, Italy, Switzerland and Austria. Together we are fighting against the brutal border regime and for freedom of movement.

FOR THE RIGHT TO COME, TO GO AND TO STAY!
EQUAL SOCIAL RIGHTS FOR ALL!

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*** When we write women* we mean:
WLTQI* WomenLesbianTransQueerInter* (incl. Queergender & transmen who were assigned female at birth and feel themselves part of the history of the autonomous women and lesbian movement)

We, the Chad Youth in Germany, wish to protest against the visit of the Chadian dictator Idriss Deby in Germany because this tyrant represses his people. We urge the leaders of Germany not to be complacent with the dictator Deby who does not respect any democratic principle and values.

For 26 years, he has monopolized power through the use of force, stolen elections, repressed peaceful protests/demonstrations, murdered political opponents, journalists, human rights activists and all those holding an opposing view to his regime or those who denounce human right abuses under his rule.

We want to raise our voice to make people aware of his bloody regime. We refuse to welcome Idriss Deby in Germany! Come and support us!

When: 11th of October 2016, meeting point/demo route: Alexanderplatz 1. at 14:00 until the Auswärtiges Amt: Werderscher Markt at 18:00